Fall sweeps in

After all those blog flashbacks to the past summer, now it is time for more recent updates. I should be working on our moving claim and a paper and a job application, but instead I am procrastinating -or perhaps I should think of this writing session as warm up writing... 

Halloween decorations are up around our new neighborhood - lots of orange lights and inflatable ghouls. We've added our own strings of lights - the purple bat lights are happily at home here where bats are a local icon because they live under the highway overpasses - we just rescued one from our swimming pool. It must have fallen from the limb above the pool. Fortunately, our youngest saw it and called out before it had time to drown. I didn't think it was going to make it because it didn't crawl/fly out of the pool skimmer net for two days, but one day I came out and it was gone, either flown or eaten. I hope the little guy lived to eat more mosquitoes!.

The bat - glad Bert got his rabies shot

Until death do us never part... Ghouls in the hood

Our lame decor, as the girls judge it

Floating pumpkin tree - originality winner

Something scary at our window - plenty of food for it. Also killed a scorpion in the kitchen the other morning - kids wanted to rescue it, but I was not going to try to mess with it.

We've also draped some of our decade old cotton spider webs to our dying live oak in the front yard. A nice oxymoron there. I called three tree services to see about having it cut down. One was $1200, one was $750, and one was $400 cash. Guess who we are going to use? How much difference is there in the process of cutting down a medium sized tree? Perhaps it's time to buy a chain saw. It might add to the spookiness of the season.

Although that tree is brown and losing leaves, most of the trees around the area show no signs of changing color.  Nonetheless, the past couple mornings have had a chill in the air. The sun is rising as we drive to school at 7:20, and setting as we eat dinner.  The seasons are changing. I planted some mums along the walkway and bought some pumpkins. We've been here for over two months now. We hosted our first dinner party a couple weeks ago0 - a homecoming dinner party for about 10 kids and most of their parents. It's starting to feel more like home - other than it still smells slightly like smokers live here after I almost burned the house down. I accidentally left a pot of chickpeas boiling in a pot of water while I took our 7 yr old and the neighbor to the park. I completely forgot about them while the girls played for an hour until I opened the door to a billow of smoke when we returned. The whole house was full of smoke - but the smoke detectors were not going off - despite the fact that they were supposedly replaced as part of the inspection process. A bit concerning. 

The latest action in the "moving on" process has been switching our medical insurance and finding civilian providers. We now have two injured athletes who need care. First our son tore his ACL playing football - he's still playing, but will need surgery when the season ends. And then last week I took our daughter to get her sore foot checked out. Probably just a ligament strain, but the doctor ordered an x-ray. She detected a joint abnormality that could be a lisfranc fracture - a rare metatarsal injury - or it could be nothing. We need to see the orthopedist, but I am still straightening out the switch from Tricare West to Tricare East Retired, because the charges for John's care aren't covered yet. Sigh. We are so used to seeing doctors for free, that this change to a co-pay system has been a bit painful. Fortunately, the foot pain seems to be subsiding this week.

Finding a dentist is next on our list - a tougher decision because we have had such up and down experiences with dentists. Some dentists seem to want to fill every soft spot in our children's mouths and make me feel like a failure because I don't oversee their brushing and flossing. Other dentists we've seen have said nothing but "see you in six months" after our biannual cleaning. I'd like to find a dentist somewhere in the middle. And wouldn't you know that my son's retainer is not fitting right any more? His lower jaw has been growing faster than his upper jaw, so he has some alignment problems. Should I try to convince him that a strong lower jaw is handsome?

I shared pictures on social media last week of our high schoolers dressed up for homecoming. Several people commented that it looked like they were transitioning well. It's a process, I answered one. This is a good example of social media deception - not intentional, although did I share these photos out of a desire to prove we are settling in? To prove to whom? I need the reminder the most. Did I share them to prop up the kids? Peer pressure from all the other homecoming shares? After spending over an hour trying to decide which pictures and whether to post, I finally hit share, and then have second guessed all day the decision, as well as regretting the time wasted on media. The fact that people see the happy smiles and think all is well shows just how well a happy smile can cover the turmoil inside.  I've also noticed lately - maybe because Instagram is sharing more "You might like this" posts, or maybe because I signed up for a promotional giveaway not realizing all the targeted suggestions I might receive  --- that there are A LOT of Catholic mom instagram accounts that show young moms in beautiful spaces with lovely clean children and pretty dresses and cool coffee mugs by beautiful planners and journaling Bibles and thoughtful reflections about growing in holiness and being thankful.  What pressure for young moms! That is a lot of beauty to live up to. Perhaps one of the things I am most grateful for is that most of my child rearing of little kids was prior to the infiltration of influencer social media accounts. Even now I am susceptible to the envy, and I have to be careful around my youngest not to have the phone out often. I guess when the older kids were her age, they wanted to watch VCR tapes and veg in front of the TV, while she wants to watch PBS apps or other shows or look at pictures. But those tapes didn't link to other accounts -  she also sometimes looks through my instagram account to see photos of the cousins, and those "suggested for you" ads are all right there for her to peruse. Fortunately, they are mostly Catholic mom lifestyle pages or Travel Europe pages or Notre Dame sports reports or Bookshelf photo accounts ... following my clicks...

Back to my first point in that paragraph -- the kids. Comparatively, the kids are doing well. They aren't coming home in tears every day, although one day a classmate did tell our 15 year old daughter that she didn't like her - then a couple days later said it was just a joke. Not a funny one. There were some tears that day. And there have been lots of tears shed by the seven year old at odd moments. She tends to feel things strongly. Even the senior broke down a few times about his knee shortly after he tore his ACL, but not from the physical pain. Since the dr gave him permission to try playing with a brace, he is playing through the pain, and every game I am afraid he'll be pulled from the field with a his lower leg at an odd angle, but we've decided the few moments of glory are worth the risk. Perhaps one day we'll regret this decision, but the pain of watching him mourn lost dreams was excruciating. And amazingly, he has had some great catches and has scored a touchdown every game - so the pain has been worth it to him. 

  

Sporty and fancy photos

Meanwhile, I still do my own fair share - or unfair share, really - of mourning. I still have a hard time stopping the broken record of self-pity and self-recrimination about taking on so much debt for a house that isn't our dream house. I'm supposed to be writing a paper about Wendell Berry for an academic conference I signed up for in February or March - it's in three weeks!!- but I can't bring myself to read him because his words are like a knife in the heart. We had the chance to make a radical change and instead chose something that isn't anything like what we had talked about. I've decided it was temporary insanity. This summer was insane.  No one wants to read anymore about this little pity party I keep having for myself, but ugh, I can't seem to leave the party.  

My solution is to keep trying to remember things to be grateful for... the sunsets, the space, the new friends. I've got a new walking friend down the street, and the neighbors had an impromptu happy hour in their driveway the other night to celebrate the cooler weather.  And I'm working as a substitute teacher for the moment while I try to decide what's next - a teaching job? a new degree, either to earn a teaching certificate or to finally finish that PhD I started years ago? Is it too late for that? Any distraction or redirect is helpful, as the parenting experts say.  Shopping for bookshelves without buying any is my biggest distraction right now. One of these days perhaps I'll commit. 

In the meantime, we have been happy to host both our own newlywed children who came for a visit a weekend ago and then this weekend my cousin's newlywed children, who came to town for a wedding. With our oldest kids, we watched the high schoolers compete in football and cross country, suffered a car break down, and then spent a day exploring downtown Austin - walking along the other Colorado River for the first time, and shopping the hipster boutiques and bootshops on South Congress. My cousins' kids spent most of their time at the wedding festivities with their friends, but Sunday morning we had a lovely visit on the back porch lingering over brunch and coffee after Mass before they headed on their drive home.  As I mentioned in the comments section to Hope, it was nice to be able to pay forward the free place to stay, since we frequently received such kindnesses in our early days.   Much to be thankful for. 

 

Getting acquainted with our new towns with the "big kids." This was my penance last week - the priest said, "Enjoy it." Sometimes you get lucky in the confessional, I guess.

And now to look forward to the weekend's haunted festivities... the spooky decorations around the neighborhood likely foreshadow a lively evening on Halloween night ... much candy has been purchased. 

  

Fall colors

Summer Reading and Unrest

It seems every year, my reading list gets shorter. I thought I might catch up on some reading this summer, but it just hasn't happened.  We've had a busy summer, and with everyone home and a series of houseguests, I haven't had a lot of quiet time. I've also been planning a pre-school co-op for next fall, tutoring a couple ESL students, and revising my class for the fall term, which will meet once a week instead of just three times a term. 

But I also admit I don't read as much because of the iphone.  Many hours that I used to spend reading are now spent checking in. (Did you see the article: "Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation" at The Atlantic someone linked to on Facebook? The irony of reading this on an idevice when it was linked to on social media isn't lost. Another article that falls short of its title that I spent time reading and plotting a response in my head was this one: "How American Politics Went Insane". The author, Kurt Anderson, describes a lot of fringe groups, but I don't think he fully answers the question in the title.  He makes some suggestions, but I was left unclear about why the pendulum of left/right extreme fringe groups swings when it does. The article does not seem without bias, and when I finished skimming it, I wasn't sure what sane politics looks like, if it even has ever existed (Anderson does seem to think the Reagan years were a period of relative civility.) I also think he could give more responsibility to the internet for the spread of vitriol, rigidity, and incivility, along with eccentric ideas like conspiracy theories.) I did cut down on social media this summer in between travel and company, but I still would like to limit more of that time. Especially after reading that article about the role of the internet in youth development, I want to set a better example for our kids.

While I pat myself on the back for not letting my kids have smart phones until they are 18, they have plenty of access to media.  We have a communal iphone and an ipad, and computers. The 17 year old has an old iphone that doesn't have cell service which he uses for messaging, music, and Instagram. All of the teenagers have Instagram and Facebook accounts and get text messages from friends.  They aren't out of the loop.

In addition to reading the Atlantic article, I did read a couple of other books that have increased my desire to opt out of the fastpaced digital world, even though I am only marginally a part of it.  One was Rod Dreher's The Benedict Option.  I was excited to see this book at my mom and dad's while I was visiting, because I've been wanting to read it, but didn't want to buy a new book that I didn't have time for.  I really only skimmed it - but I don't need to be convinced that Christians are becoming increasingly marginalized and that we need to support each other in living in the world while not becoming a part of it.  The book blends an historical review of Christian thought, an analysis of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and the "After Virtue" world Alisdair MacIntyre prophesied and then provides strategies for Christians in a post Christian world, as the subtitle suggests. Some profiles of people who are managing to find community and support for living a life based on Christian virtues are also included. Some of the suggestions include not giving your children phones and free access to the internet, home schooling, forming friendships or joining ecclesial movements or other groups that provide fellowship and mutual support in the Christian life, and taking part in the sacramental life of the Church.

As commentators have pointed out, this conversation has been going on for years - millennia - but each generation must find a way to continue the conversation. The struggle between straddling and sacred and secular worlds has been ongoing in my own life.  Waves of momentum in my faith life have been followed by times of fallowness. Dreher's suggestions all seem good - but some of the critiques also seem justified, namely that in his profiles, he fails to examine the lives of minorities who have traditionally formed strong bonds through Christian communities while being oppressed and persecuted, and that Christians should be more or less politically active or more or less involved in the life of the world.  Especially in light of the recent political upheaval sweeping the country, it seems both necessary to form and nourish strong communities, but also to take action in the wider community. How do we balance service and preservation?

This quandary and others are at the heart of Bishop Barron's Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism and in C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Both address the fine lines between virtue and vice, between the will and emotion, between action and contemplation, etc.  (The Screwtape Letters has much that is timely - for instance the devil encourages bias, excess emotion, uncertainty, and false humility - a great line about how democracy can be used by the devils to increase a sense of superiority in order for people to distinguish themselves - while God loves the opposing virtues of freedom from bias, acts of free will, rhythm and harmony, and appreciation/gratitude.) For that matter, the fourth big book I read this summer was Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. This book, too, examines intersections (isn't "sectionality" a buzzword in literary studies these days?) and the challenges of attempting acculturation and assimilation while preserving and respecting the practices of traditional communities and cultures.

Really there are no easy answers to the question of how then shall we live.  My husband, son, and I had a good conversation the other night about current events, in between the rise of white supremacists and extreme nationalism in our own country and the terror attacks across Europe.  The role of media in feeding extremist or fringe groups can't be underrated: social media increases a sense of isolation, victimization, and tribalism - the attitudes that increase the likelihood that a young person will identify with a cult or reactionary organization. I also feel that poverty of literacy education has a large role in the inability of  young people to empathize (I acknowledge my bias towards the importance of literacy.)

Our son will be in Barcelona in a few days, right where the most recent attack occurred.  While it is true that cycles of rising abuse of power and oppression, followed by the response of violent and/or peaceful revolutions can be identified throughout all of history, it nevertheless is no less upsetting to live during the upheaval. How do we respond?  How do we encourage justice and the preservation of peace, in the world and in our hearts?

My instinct is to retreat, to pull the curtains on the outside world, and to focus on addressing the fires and flares in our own household and local community.  This is another reason to turn off media feeds. But I also believe that we have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters in the wider community.  We continue to try to do our little bit in between making donations, signing up to serve dinners at the homeless shelter, tutoring, etc.  Stepping away from social media may be described as refusing to stand up against bullies, but in order to have the time to serve others, we need to turn off the devices.

Hmmm, I am out of time, and I think this post may be too disjointed and too undeveloped to be worth posting, but I'm going to throw it out into the evil web anyway.  (Another interesting conversation with our 20 year old was about the deep web, the dark web, and bitcoin.  All of these topics are fascinating in an unsettling way and need further thought and research ... )